Each January I participate in the YPO Harvard Presidents’ Program, an executive education program exclusively available to YPO members, which upon graduation grants you HBS Alumni status.
It takes a minimum of 9 years to graduate from the program which is structured like a “Mini MBA” that keeps up with the times. For example, this year we studied cases which were less than 6 months old, including; the Covid impact on Princess Cruises, Valuing Peloton and a Fine Jewellers’ sales experience going virtual.
The YPO/Harvard Presidents’ Program embodies the best of YPO’s goal of Lifelong Learning. Harvard has offered an unparalleled setting for YPO members to step back from their day-to-day business demands to explore new ideas relating to business, strategy and execution, to become inspired and to embrace new friendships.
Like most things
YPO, the value is in the people who attend. Of the ~30,000 global members, only 180 (0.6%) get the chance to attend HBS each year. Everyone is a CEO, Founder or President of a substantial enterprise which makes the peer learning and shared experiences second to none. I was waitlisted for 3 years before getting my chance to participate.
Unsurprisingly, some of my favourite takeaways over the past week were the cases we studied on Family Business, Stewardship and Generational Wealth.
I can’t share the cases with you but I will encourage you to read some of these supporting articles from HBR which stirred lively debate amongst our cohort:
I’m looking forward to getting back to Boston in January 2022 for another in-person learning experience.